One photo immediately came to mind when I read the Weekly Prompts: Unusual prompt.
It was this photo of a leucistic juvenile Great Spotted Woodpecker. Leucism is a lack of dark pigmentation making the affected species look a little like an albino. The pale brown areas on the birds head would normally be black.
Then I thought about this photo. It shows a male Black-throated Blue Warbler pretending it’s an Oriole by eating the grape jelly in an Oriole feeder. As a member of the Wood Warbler family, or New World Warbler family depending on which reference you use, it normally feeds on insects.
7 replies on “Weekly Prompts: Unusual”
I love both your photographs. I get the occasional woodpecker in my garden but never one like yours. Thanks, David.
Thanks Sue. Rather amusingly a different photo of the leucistic Woodpecker on a feeder was used in a birdwatching magazine to illustrate an article on feeding the birds. There was no mention of the unusual plumage of the bird.
How odd! I was wondering about the other bird, could there have been insects in the jelly?
I don’t think there was insects in the jelly. We were filling the holder with grape jelly (jam) out of the fridge and the bird was around the feeder for a few days before I got chance to set up the camera.
I didn’t realise birds ate jam. Is that all birds or just some?
Mostly just the Baltimore Oriole we get most springs. They like Orange halves and grape jam which is why there’s Orange halves visible in the photo.
Thank you, David.